Soon, of course, the attitude towards the player mutates into anger and resentment.

Stories emerge detailing the lengths a club has gone to in order to get him back (the laying on of a private plane is a favourite).

He is accused of ingratitude and of irresponsibility. He is told he is showing blatant disrespect to his club.

He is told that, given he is earning a king’s ransom, he should have been on the plane back to London a few hours after his team was knocked out.

His ‘late’ return is portrayed as a form of betrayal, a sign that he does not really care about his teammates or the supporters.

So let’s get this straight.

Do we really expect players who have been away at a major tournament for up to a month to rejoin their club immediately?

Do we really think we can take no account of the fact that they have been away, on another continent, taking part in intense competition?

Let’s look at it another way.

When a player has taken part in the Euros, do we expect him to be catapulted straight back into pre-season training without a rest?

Of course we don’t.

Players who come back from the European Championship are given extra time off so they can recover.

It should be the same for the Africa Cup of Nations, but the attitude to it from English clubs is still dominated by double standards.

The tournament - which has been in existence longer than the European Championship, by the way - is treated as a giant inconvenience.

It is as if some Premier League managers didn’t realise the bloke they were signing was African when they bought him.

Because the Africa Cup of Nations comes as a terrible shock to them each time it rolls around.

Instead of trying to trample on the African game and devalue its biggest tournament, maybe they should have thought of the implications before they signed the guy.

Sure, it is hard not to feel some sympathy with Tottenham, who were desperate to rush Adebayor back into action.

Spurs had lost Jermain Defoe to an ankle injury and knew their attacking threat against a rejuvenated Newcastle last Saturday would be further blunted if Adebayor was missing, too.

But Adebayor had played four matches in 12 days for Togo at the tournament in South Africa - the last of which went to extra time.

That game was on February 3.

Spurs played Newcastle on February 9.

It was stretching logic to expect Adebayor to be available, and it was commendable on his part that he even made the bench.

But the logic that is applied to so many other parts of the game these days - the received wisdom about the importance of rest, about not overplaying players - disappears when the Cup of Nations is part of the equation.

It is like a remnant of imperialism, an unwillingness to accept that Africa’s tournament could make the same demands on a player as Europe’s does.

Just because it falls in the middle of the European season doesn’t change that.

Once again, it’s what you sign up for when you recruit a player who might be involved in the competition.

The Adebayor saga illustrated once more the fact that there are few events in football which expose European prejudices as surely as the Africa Cup of Nations.

Awareness may have improved since the days when a national newspaper executive became confused by the fixtures at the 2006 World Cup because he had believed, until then, that Togo was an abbreviation for Trinidad and Tobago.

But it is time for us all to stop flying into a rage every time an African player takes a few days out after the Cup of Nations.

It’s a football tournament, not a sunshine break.

It’s time to start treating it, and the players who play in it, with a bit more respect.